Restaurants are filling glasses with Maryland wine

By Richard Gorelick, The Baltimore Sun

Maryland Wine Week is back. The 11-day celebration of the state's wine industry begins Friday and runs through June 24.

Organized by the Maryland Wineries Association, the third annual promotional event has restaurants and wine shops throughout the state offering discounts and specials in addition to a full schedule of winemaker dinners and other events featuring Maryland wine and winemakers.

Johnny's (4800 Roland Ave., 410-773-0777, johnnysdownstairs.com) will spotlight a different Maryland winemaker at evening wine tastings from June 18 to 23. The free tastings, which will include light snacks, are from 5 to 6 o'clock each night. Participating wineries include Elk Run Vineyards, Old Westminster Winery, Basignani Winery and Millstone Cellars.

On Saturday, the Calvert County town of North Beach hosts Maryland Wine Week's kickoff, Eat, Drink, Go Local North Beach, a waterfront market festival, featuring more than 15 wineries from all over the state in addition to farm stands, cheese mongers and other artisans.

Eat, Drink, Go Local North Beach is noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday at Fifth and Bay avenues in North Beach. Admission is free, and $20 wine-tasting passes are available at eatdrinkgolocal.com.

For more information about Maryland Wine Week go to marylandwine.org/mdwineweek/.

Get your Goat Clementine is hosting a six-course goat dinner on June 24. The dinner is a benefit for Gather Baltimore, a volunteer program that collects and redistributes unsold vegetables, fruit and bread from the Baltimore Farmers' Market & Bazaar in downtown Baltimore and other sources.

The dinner will feature goat from Wagon Wheel Farm in Mount Airy and dairy from other local farms, along with beer, wine and cider pairings from Flying Dog Brewery, Union Craft Brewing, Millstone Cellars, Colonel Ricketts Hard Cider Winery and Boordy Vineyards.

The international menu includes tacos de birria de chivo, a classic street-food treat; spicy West Indian squash soup; a citrus Mocetta salad with radishes, orange peel and ramp vinaigrette and a charcuterie plate with longaniza sausage. The main course is a roasted Jamaican jerk shoulder and dessert is a chevre cheesecake with cardamom ice cream from Prigel Family Creamery and sour cherry jam.

The goat dinner is 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. June 24 at Clementine, 5402 Harford Road. Tickets are $80 and are available at gatherbaltimore.org. For more information call Clementine at 410-444-1497 or go to bmoreclementine.com.

There's some chef news at Clementine. Jill Snyder has left the Hamilton restaurant after just over a year. The former "Top Chef" contestant has relocated to Santa Monica, Calif. Taking her place is Ontaria Kirby, who worked at Clementine previously but left to take over the Woman's Industrial Kitchen.

Father's Day Although not traditionally celebrated in restaurants — at least not on Mother's Day levels — a few restaurants are trying to lure families away from their backyard grills.

Fleet Street Kitchen (1012 Fleet St., 410-244-5830, fleetstreetkitchen.com) is offering a "handsome" brunch and dinner on Sunday. Brunch is a $39 three-course fixed-price menu, and dinner a $49 three-course fixed-price menu as well as its full a la carte menu. The restaurant's Harbor East neighbor Fleming's Prime Steak House & Wine Bar (720 Aliceanna St., 410-332-1666, flemingssteakhouse.com) is serving a three-course brunch for $36.95.

And Mt. Washington Tavern (5700 Newbury St., 410-367-6903, mtwashingtontavern.com) is giving dads bottles of Maker's Mark Bourbon Flavored Gourmet Sauce, along with a recipe for the tavern's short ribs.

Anniversary specials The Royal Sonesta Harbor Court (550 Light 410-234-0550, sonesta.com/baltimore/) is marking its first year under the Sonesta banner with a series of weekly dining specials in June. Through Saturday, the hotel's Explorers restaurant is offering buy one, get one free entrees, and starting Sunday and running through June 30, the deal is 50 percent off the entire check, excluding alcohol. The hotel is offering discounted valet parking all month, too.

Shutterings Joss Cafe on Charles Street is closed but only temporarily. A spin-off from a long-running Annapolis restaurant, the Baltimore cafe opened in 2009 in the old Kawasaki space.

Reached at the Annapolis restaurant, a Joss spokesman said the owners were looking for a new management team to run the Baltimore cafe and planned to have it back open by the fall.

Blue Sage Cafe and Wine Bar closed on June 1, its first anniversary. This is the Mount Washington space that was formerly The Falls (and before that Freda's Kitchen and, for years, the Mt. Washington Food Market).